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Political discussion here. Any reasonable opinion is welcome, but due to the sensitive nature of the topic area, please be nice and respectful to others. No flaming or trolling, please. And please keep political commentary out of the other board areas and confine it to this area. Thanks!

This story is burning up the TV and Twitter the past few days. A whistleblower in the federal government has submitted a complaint about promises between President Trump (/ his administration) and the President of Ukraine. The complaint alleges that Trump promised hundreds of millions of dollars of aid to Ukraine if they would agree to launch an investigation to Joe Biden and his son for possible wrongdoing, or, that they threatened to withhold such previously promised aid unless Ukraine agreed to launch such an investigation into Biden.

Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani did a CNN interview with Chris Cuomo where in the span of 30 seconds, he denied asking Ukraine to investigate Biden, then turned around and said, "Of course I did!" when asked whether he did so.

Thoughts on this story? If it's true as described, this represents extorting another country to get them to interfere in our elections and help our President smear his opponent to get re-elected. Does it give new vigor to the calls to impeach Trump? Will it just lead to nothing like every other Trump scandal seems to do?

Hunter Biden has some very dubious associations in the Ukraine. Investigating Biden's blackmailing of Ukraine to benefit himself and his son and the amount of money they pocketed is very much the type of corruption the President has every right to discuss with Ukraine...... they've already been involved in ways that are very problematic.

There is video proof of Biden laughing about how he refused to give them money unless they fired the prosecutor that was looking into his son and drop the investigation, and threatened to call Obama if they had a problem with it.

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so i guess the unlawful surveillance of the President is still an ongoing thing, as well......

It sounds like there is sort of a case to look into Biden’s son and Biden by your articles. Biden holding back money to the Ukraine unless they agree to fire a prosecutor sounds almost the same as Trump holding back money to the Ukraine unless they agree to investigate Biden and his son. Was Biden doing it to protect his son? Is Trump doing it to destroy a rival?

They don’t seem to be accusing Biden’s son of anything specific. He might have been paid money as a consultant for a oil company that was being investigated and that sounds fishy to somebody? What is the crime Biden’s son being accused of?

so i guess the unlawful surveillance of the President is still an ongoing thing, as well......

I haven’t seen a shred of evidence of that. Everything I have seen shows the FBI investigation and surveillance as being totally legal. They went through all the normal channels and got the required judges to sign off on it. Just calling it unlawful doesn’t make it unlawful.

Ukraine could badly damage both Donald Trump and the Democratshttps://thehill.com/opinion/white-house ... -democratsTo make matters worse, any impeachment proceeding would highlight the dubious business deals of Hunter Biden, reportedly had a penchant for making huge profits in countries where his father was conducting official government business.

This included Hunter accompanying the former vice president on Air Force Two on an official trip to China. Shortly thereafter, Hunter signed a $1 billion private equity deal with a subsidiary of the Bank of China, a deal that was later expanded to $1.5 billion. Hunter also was asked to be a director of a Ukrainian natural gas company, Burisma Holdings, owned by a government minister and close associate of blood-soaked former president and Russian stooge Viktor Yanukovych. That is the same Yanukovych represented by disgraced Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort in his own seedy international business deals.

Critics have long pointed to the role Joe Biden played in getting the Ukrainian chief prosecutor fired after he threatened to investigate Burisma Holdings. Biden later bragged that he held up more than $1 billion in loan guarantees and gave the Ukrainians just hours to fire the prosecutor. In fairness to Biden, the United States and many countries were clamoring for Ukraine to act on its rampant corruption, including the need for a more aggressive prosecutor. Yet many experts, even The New York Times, have agreed that the business dealings of Hunter pose a serious conflict of interest for his father. Few people believe the Chinese or Ukrainians embraced Hunter because of his financial brilliance.

Hunter Biden has some very dubious associations in the Ukraine. Investigating Biden's blackmailing of Ukraine to benefit himself and his son and the amount of money they pocketed is very much the type of corruption the President has every right to discuss with Ukraine...... they've already been involved in ways that are very problematic.

There is video proof of Biden laughing about how he refused to give them money unless they fired the prosecutor that was looking into his son and drop the investigation, and threatened to call Obama if they had a problem with it.

To be clear, the president is not identifying potential corruption and allowing the department of justice to investigate independently. He is specifically extorting a foreign government to deliver dirt on his biggest opponent before providing the aid he promised them to defend their citizens.

Hunter Biden has some very dubious associations in the Ukraine. Investigating Biden's blackmailing of Ukraine to benefit himself and his son and the amount of money they pocketed is very much the type of corruption the President has every right to discuss with Ukraine......

so i guess the unlawful surveillance of the President is still an ongoing thing, as well......

It is illegal for the President to bribe or extort other countries for his personal benefit. Telling Ukraine that we'll cut off $250m of foreign aid that they urgently need to keep Russia from overrunning their country, unless they dig up dirt on the President's political opponents, is as sleazy as it gets. And, again, it's against the law.

If Trump thinks Biden has done something wrong, he can have US intelligence or law enforcement look into it. Not extort other countries to force them to do it.

My understanding is that this Biden thing has already been looked into and no illegal conduct was found. But regardless of that, it is still inappropriate for the President to bully other countries into smearing his political enemies and interfere in our upcoming election.

As for unlawful surveillance, every phone call the President makes to foreign leaders is, and has long been, recorded and transcribed. This is widely known and has been done for many reasons. One reason it is done to protect us in case there is ever any dispute about what was said on a call. Trump would have known that his calls are monitored; likely there were people in the room listening as he made these calls, as well. The idea that he was spied on unlawfully is preposterous conspiratorial garbage.

I really don't see how anybody can defend this. It is clearly inappropriate, and is arguably grounds for impeachment all by itself, even if there had been no Mueller/Russia investigation.

This hurts Biden more than Trump. Some Democrats will care if he did use his power to manipulate foreign powers into helping his family. That will turn off a lot of voters like me who care if the candidate has morals and integrity.

Republicans have already proven over and over that they don’t care what unscrupulous things Trump does and it will probably make them like him even more...

This hurts Biden more than Trump. Some Democrats will care if he did use his power to manipulate foreign powers into helping his family. That will turn off a lot of voters like me who care if the candidate has morals and integrity.

This whole thing keeps spiraling further and further out of control for Trump. He withheld millions in foreign aid to an ally nation. He called them multiple times saying he wanted them to interfere in the 2020 US election by investigating his political opponent. And he and his people then worked to cover it up when someone tried to blow the whistle.

This is impeachable conduct, and I think it's going to be the end of him.

I am for truth and justice no matter what party people belong to. I know Trump is corrupt and evil. It is looking more and more like the Bidens were pushing the envelope of acceptable behavior. Maybe Hunter did nothing wrong. It sure seems like he was profiting off his fathers position and his father was using his position to protect his son. Maybe they broke no laws. Ethically it smells bad to me.